


All's Wells That Ends Wells

by Merkwerkee



Series: Being Bruno Hamilton [36]
Category: Masters of the Metaverse
Genre: s5 e7, soldier worried about the mental stability of his teammates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22856203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merkwerkee/pseuds/Merkwerkee
Summary: In the process of moving from one base to another deep inside the city of Collyseum, Bruno takes a moment to contemplate his teammates
Series: Being Bruno Hamilton [36]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643020





	All's Wells That Ends Wells

Bruno set the box of cans in the Jeep-esque vehicle and headed back inside the bunker.

Zenda had come to them as a group two days ago, and told them they would have to leave the place they’d been staying in for the past few…..weeks? (it was hard to tell days from nights in a place that didn’t seem to have a sky so much as it had a direction upward and a color above that never varied) would be going back to where it had come from, and they needed to move everything out or risk losing it. As bug-out orders went, it was nice that they had this much warning; it was not so nice in the fact that they had six pieces of large and heavy equipment to move as well as as much food as they could fit in whatever space was in the Jeep thing.

Bruno passed Aquamarine and Dr. Clarkson sitting on a recently-emptied shelf with their heads together talking quietly. He could only hope Aquamarine was getting the help necessitated by the nine weeks she’d spent in solitary.

 _Jesus_.

It gave him a shivery feeling just thinking about it; solitary was never fun, and his stints had never been for longer than 72 hours. Nine weeks….it didn’t bear thinking about. Besides, Aquamarine had seemed some reasonable degree of stable when they were out on mission together. Hopefully that trend continued.

Seeing them together reminded him of the fourth member of their bug-out squad - Zenda had gone back to the city, and Andi with him, which worried Bruno but there was nothing to be done about it right this second - and he turned towards the wall that had the metapods lined up against it. There was some sort of strange-looking sled hooked to the Jeep outside that they were supposed to load them up on, though how they were supposed to get them that far Bruno wasn’t sure. He could lift a lot more weight now, true, but he wasn’t sure it was _that_ much more weight.

Walking over he found Wells half-concealed behind the furthest, sitting and staring at it like it held the secrets of the universe and would impart them if he just stared hard enough. Given his state of - for lack of a better term - being when Bruno had first met him, coupled with his current state and the things he’d said back in Hawaii….Bruno had heard similar things in ‘Nam, and after, and he remembered exactly how that had ended for far too many of them.

Bruno wasn’t the guy you went to to talk about feelings; he was the guy you went to to determine how much ordinance you needed to bring down a bridge or had a building you didn’t want to be there any more. He got more out of shooting practice with Andi - kid could hit every shot but her form and disregard for weapon safety would have his old Gunny spinning in his grave - than he had out of the few awkward, stilted talks he’d tried with her.

But Wells didn’t look like the kind of person who’d enjoy taking potshots at - on Zenda’s insistence - _empty_ cans out behind the bunker, so talking it was. Hopefully this turned out better than the last time he’d tried having a heart-to-heart with someone who had a long way to fall.

“Hey,” he said as he came to a stop a few feet away from where Wells sat, and the man started like he hadn’t heard anyone approaching at all. “Bruno? Have you loaded all the food then? Except perhaps the bread; if we could contrive to leave the canned bread here I don’t think anyone would miss it terribly.” Wells ran at the mouth like he’d explode if he held any words back, yet he almost always avoided any talk about himself if he could feasibly manage it. 

Bruno had met a few guys like that, way back, who’d talked as much as they possibly could so you wouldn’t notice when their hands shook and their breath came short. Guys like that, it was always easiest to try and fill in the picture by when they changed the subject - though Bruno’d never been sure what to do with that picture once he had it.

“Most of the food is loaded, we’ve just got to figure out how to move these things,” he tapped on the pod for emphasis and Wells nodded, mouth already open to expound on his ideas on the topic no doubt, but Bruno cut him off. “Have you talked to Dr. Clarkson yet?” It wasn’t what you’d call a circumspect kind of approach, but then Bruno wasn’t what you’d call a circumspect kind of guy. See the mission, do the mission, move on to the next mission.

Wells didn’t seem to appreciate it. He smiled and half-laughed like Bruno’d said something funny, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes and something glittered in the back of his gaze that concerned Bruno. “Oh no, she’s been _far_ too busy. It’s quite rude to interrupt someone mid-conversation, you know, and we’ve had to pack and move everything in such a hurry that there really hasn’t been time to chat.” Wells paused for breath and Bruno opened his mouth to interject, but Wells steamrolled on. “In fact, speaking of rudeness, it was quite rude of Zenda to order us to move and then not stay to help. After all, he and I spent a good deal of time setting up this bunker in the first place and when we move we will, inevitably, have to rearrange everything when he gets to wherever he’s sending us. He’s quite fussy about where his equipment goes, and I do mean that in every sense of the word.”

Bruno blinked, and Wells flapped a hand at him. “Never mind. As I said, there is simply too much to do for me to take up any of Dr. Clarkson’s time when it may be more beneficially spent doing other things. Speaking of, have you tried lifting one of these pods? I seem to recall you didn’t have much trouble with those cuffs a few days ago, and while these seem quite heavy they are, in fact, largely hollow. I believe you should be able to lift them one at a time to transport them out to the antigrav sled Zenda provided us; where he got it from, I shudder to think, but it should perform adequately for our purposes.”

He gestured at the pod in front of him, and Bruno eyed it dubiously, before looking back at Wells. “She’d make time for you, if you asked. You’re a valuable part of this team, and I’m pretty sure she’d call you a friend if anyone inquired. Think about it." 

Without waiting for a reply - though Wells seemed to have been struck temporarily dumb at Bruno’s response - Bruno bent and heaved on the base of the pod. It was heavy, nearly more than he could lift let alone carry, and balancing it was awkward as hell. Still, Bruno’d hauled some heavy and awkward loads in his life, and he set off across the bunker to deposit the pod on the sled.

He could only hope Wells would listen to sense, and talk to someone more qualified to help than Bruno was. _Before_ the man did something he and everyone else would regret.


End file.
